The last few weeks of August have been full of summer-y fun, like harvesting the bounty from our garden, including lots of eggplants, tomatoes, cucumbers, green beans (that are purple and yellow), and peaches.
Our poor little peach tree was so loaded with fruit it could barely hold it without snapping all the branches.
There was lots of playing outside, homemade ice cream, and trips to the pool.
Today is extremely hot, over 100°F. It is going to stay hot for a couple of days, so we are mostly staying inside, at least in the afternoon.
However, we have had plenty of outside time over the last couple of weeks. We took the kids to the Benton County fair and they had fun riding on the rides:
Nothing says summer to me like blackberry pie. For those who don’t know, blackberries are a terrible invasive plant here, but make the most incredibly delicious berries. We have a great situation here where our neighbours behind our house have blackberries growing that are coming over our fence. So we get the benefit without having to battle the problem 🤣
Last week the kiddos picked some berries over the fence:
Mmmm pie 😋
The garden is starting to really produce, and we have new zucchini almost every day. I have never really had zucchini grow well like this - in Saskatchewan it requires hand pollination to do well, and I tried but the results tended to be underwhelming. Before Saskatchewan, I think I always planted them too close to other things. But this year they have plenty of space and plenty of pollinators, and my two plants (one yellow and one green) have been steadily producing for at least two weeks. We have had zucchini in pasta sauce, quesadillas, grilled on the barbecue, sautéed on their own, a couple of loaves of zucchini bread… if this keeps up we might actually get tired of it, but for now I am still excited that the garden is doing so well 😊
Jeff and I are working through the month of July, so the kids have had camps every week. Last week was Girl Scout day camp, and it was pretty intense - we dropped them off at 8 AM and pick them up at 5 PM, and then I was volunteering with check out (making sure the girls were going home with people they were supposed to go with), so they did not get home most days until around 5:40 PM. This coming week they have a garden camp that runs 9 AM to 3 PM, which is going to feel very relaxed.
Last week Jeff there was a particular day when Jeff had an evening commitment and since Camp was so long, he hardly had a chance to see the kids. Anticipating this, he decided to remind them that he loves them by making puzzles for the them. The puzzles involved word scrambles, crosswords, using answers to find a code, and then decoding a secret message in order to find a cookie. With them being as tired as they were after camp, these puzzles, which were meant to be pure fun, turned into a stressful and tearful experience.
So the next day Jeff made new puzzles that were a little easier, and led to popsicles. Here are the kids doing those, still in their camp t-shirts:
This time there were no tears, and it was a bit more fun for everyone 😂
Last week we camped for three nights at Lake of the Woods in southern Oregon. We camped with my childhood friend and her family, which was a fabulous time. We also visited Crater Lake, which Jeff and I had not been to for 20 years, and Maren and Linden had never seen. The reviews from the kids were mixed, though I think really they had a good time.
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